


Although It's Over (A Memory Hangs On)

by sleeplessink



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: (NOT about each other), Gen, LMAO, nothing happens, they just talk and have feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 09:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeplessink/pseuds/sleeplessink
Summary: Two friends, a sleepless night, and talks about broken hearts (that don't quite know they're broken)[post-1x16]





	Although It's Over (A Memory Hangs On)

It's been two weeks since school has ended, since the hallways have emptied out, since Landon and Josie found themselves to be the only residents of the Salvatore School and agreed to be the other's research assistants on their respective quests. 

The word "friend" was used tentatively at first, but they found themselves slipping into each other's space with ease. 

Josie might have said it's because they're used to having someone by their side, because they both have a hole for the other to fill. But that's not it, exactly. 

They're just both the type of people to be comfortable with silence enveloping them, without the pressure of small talk pressing on the back of their heads. They’re focused on the things that matter to them in the same way — it makes for terribly productive research sessions — and it doesn’t take long for them to realize they have similar tastes in music. 

So they exchange artists to listen to, and she smiles at his witty comments, and he always asks her if she’s doing okay whenever her gaze seems to waver in the middle of the afternoon.

(She always says yes, of course.)

(He always nods and pretends to be convinced by her answer.) 

In the end, Landon thinks that it’s just nice, having a friend. One that’s in human form, at least.

* * *

He stumbles into the kitchen one sleepless night, at an ungodly hour. Josie’s already there, pouring herself a glass of water. She jumps when she notices his presence.

“Sorry,” he rubs the back of his head, his voice particularly low from not having been used for a couple of hours. He clears his throat. “Can't sleep?"

She shakes her head. 

“You?"

He thinks of the dreams that he always forgets, about the feeling of grasping at smoke. Tossing and turning in hopes of finding some sort of peace, and finding insomnia instead.

“Me neither." 

She has the glass of water up to her lips when Landon speaks again.

“I’m making camomile tea. Want some?"

“That'd be really nice. Thanks, Landon."

* * *

They end up with their mugs in front of the dwindling fireplace, watching the flames die slowly in front of their eyes. Landon thinks about the muted ache in his chest, how it never seems to leave him wherever he goes. He can feel it crawling up his neck, tightening the space there.

He grips the handle harder and takes a sip of his tea. 

“Do you miss her?" he asks. 

Josie's head snaps towards him, her doe eyes wide. 

“—Penelope?" he mumbles the second part of his question, wondering if he's taken it too far. 

“I hate her," she whispers with her eyes still wide, as if surprised he doesn't know. 

That's not the conclusion he had come up with around the time Penelope left, even with the limited amount of information he had at his disposal. But Landon doesn't tell her that. He only puts the mug on the ground and pulls up his knees, looking at her quietly. (He doesn’t want to force her to share something she doesn't feel comfortable with. He's learning not to push boundaries when they shouldn't be pushed.) 

Josie bites her lower lip down, and her eyes fall to the patterns of the wooden floor. 

“She told me she loved me." 

It feels like a confession, the way the hushed words float in the air. 

She's worried about how he will react, but all he does is put his chin atop his knees.

“And what did you say?"

She swallows, her gaze falling somewhere he cannot see between her eyes and the fire in front of them. 

“She'd never told me before. That she loved me. Not even when we were dating."

He doesn't point out how she didn't answer her question. The way her voice shakes tells him more than he needs to know. 

“I didn't... I didn't _know_."

There are so many things unsaid in those five words, the weight of it all thickens the space between them. Landon wonders what that must be like, to have somebody you love so far away from you. 

The feeling grips at him so abruptly, he has to take in a sharp breath. 

He would call it "loss", if he didn't know any better. If there was anything for him to lose. But Raf is on school grounds, and he's sitting in the middle of a place he gets to call home, so he can't seem to make sense of the aching hollowness inside his chest. He tentatively labels it as "empathy" as his hands tighten their hold around his mug, and the burning heat of the ceramic brings him back from his thoughts. 

“I’m sorry, Josie."

The words feel meek, but they're all he has right now. 

She smiles at him weakly, before taking a deep breath to regain composure.

“Have you ever been in love?" she asks. 

Landon opens his mouth to answer, and the full-fledged assurance with which he's about to say yes almost makes him tumble back in surprise. He unfolds his legs against the ground uncertainly.

Curiously, Josie watches an array of emotions flicker across his face. She brings her tea up to her lips as she waits for him to find his footing. His face settles on a frown. 

“Do you ever think you've lived something that you actually haven't?"

Josie nods slowly. 

“Like being in a hot air balloon? I feel like I know exactly what that would be like. But I've never been."

A smile spreads across his face. 

“That's... oddly specific." 

Their laughter echoes around the fireplace before dwindling into smiles. 

They rest in a silence punctuated with slow sips of their warm drink. Landon’s eyes trace the patterns of the stone of the fireplace while ignoring the muted ache in his chest. Meanwhile, Josie chews over words inside her mind, biting the inside of her cheeks.

When she speaks, it's terribly quiet. Like the words themselves were hesitant to exist out in the open. 

“Or how it feels like there should be someone I can blame, for my dad not being around. But there isn't."

His green eyes look up to her, but she can't meet them. Her fingers run over the edges of the planks of wood and she swallows. 

“He's not... he's not a bad dad. He loves us. And I love him, okay, I do. That's not what I meant, I just—“

“Josie." 

An exhale leaves her lips, but she can't bring herself to continue. 

“You're allowed to get hurt from people you love, you know."

She bites down her lower lip. 

“You're allowed to have feelings. The people you love won't love you any less for it." 

Her eyes remain fixed on the ground.

“Or they shouldn't, anyway." 

There isn't a single word that leaves her lips, and Landon carefully puts his mug back on the floor.

“I hope one day you can believe it for yourself." 

She wills her eyes to meet his and gives him a small smile. 

“Thanks, Landon." 

He has a feeling it's more for his benefit than hers. 

“So, you feel like you've been in love before even if you haven't?" she swerves the course of their conversation. Landon notices but falls back into it anyway, letting out a sigh. 

“It sounds dumb when you say it like that," he mumbles. 

She shakes her head. 

“Doesn't sound dumb to me." 

He blinks a few times as he looks up to meet her eyes, and there isn't a trace of mockery there. The smallest of knots untangle in his chest. 

"I... it's like I know _exactly_ the way it would feel. Like my heart just knows." 

His cheeks grow warm at the cheesiness of his words. They're usually kept for his journal; they’re not supposed to be spoken to life. He clears his throat, and frowns again. 

"Like... Like I could be in love right now."

Josie’s brows furrow delicately. 

"I know. It sounds stupid." 

She shrugs. 

"I think it sounds nice. That you could be in love right now. Makes it sound like love is just a dimension away, you know?" 

He chuckles. 

"I didn't know different dimensions were so easily in reach. Is that a magic thing?"

"It is, actually," she grins. "But that's not what I meant. Like... If the smallest of things had been different in the unfolding of our lives, we could have turned out as entirely different people, you know?" 

"Like the multiverse theory."

Josie's mind wanders to MG’s lit-up face and the motions his arms make during long-winded explanations about superhero universes. A smile blooms on her lips.

“Yeah. Like the multiverse theory.”

* * *

As the quiet settles in the room again, Josie finds her eyes drawn to a spot five feet away from where she's sitting. She thinks of herself standing there weeks and weeks ago, cheeks wet and watching a green-eyed girl walk away. She thinks about how the distance between them never stopped growing until it took the size of an ocean. An entire body of water, too many words unsaid and the weight of blame upon her shoulders.

Her train of thoughts stops there, as the pressure against her chest becomes too much to bear. She lets a deep breath fill her lungs, a reminder that her chest can still expand, that she hasn't shrunk, that she is allowed to take up space. And then she turns her thoughts outwards, because she can only spend so much time thinking about herself without feeling like she must restore some kind of balance. 

“Do you miss Raf?" she asks, putting a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Well, he's still here. It's not like he's... gone," Landon shrugs, but there's something about his own words that cut particularly deep. “He was the most important person in my life for a long time." 

“Is he not anymore?"

“No, of course he is. It's just, now—" 

Landon cuts himself short as something inside of him stumbles, the way you expect there to be another step at the end of the stairs only to find the ground. 

“—Now he's not in the form you're used to," she provides. 

That's not it, but it also isn't untrue, so he nods. 

“I guess we do call them man's best friend for a reason," he mumbles, and Josie's eyes go wide. 

"Landon!" 

A burst of laughter emits from him. 

"Raf would have laughed at that," he grins. “Before shoving me towards the wall, probably." 

His eyes fall down to his last sip of tea, looking for answers to questions he does not know. 

“Yeah," he sighs. “I miss him."

“We'll find a way to bring him back."

The nagging fear that they _won't_ grips at his throat again, and he takes his last sip of tea as if it could help it to go down. 

“Plus it's your turn tomorrow," Josie picks up. "We'll spend the entire day looking into turning him back, _and_ we have the Crescent Pack lead. We're going to figure this out."

He offers her a smile, and rubs his eyes with the palm of his hands. 

“We just found a lead for the merge today though. Don't you want to look into that tomorrow instead?"

She shakes her head.

“We had a deal. We take turns."

"Okay," he nods, before stifling a yawn. "Just let me know if you change your mind." 

The comment is nonchalant, but she knows he means it. A smile appears on her lips, her heart warm. It's nice, she thinks, having Landon as a friend. 

"I'm out," he gestures to his empty teacup. 

"I've been out for a while now," she shows the bottom of hers, smiling sheepishly. 

“You ready to get back to bed?"

“Well, we have a big day ahead of us, don't we?"

“I guess we do," he smiles, pulling himself up in front of the fire that has now fully died down.

He offers her a hand. 

Josie takes it to get back on her feet. 

“Goodnight, Landon."

“Goodnight, Josie."

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this is bros, it's just there ! (I JUST THINK JOSIE AND LANDON WOULD MAKE REALLY GOOD FRIENDS, OKAY) i know nothing happened in here except drinking tea but hey, if you feel like letting me know what you thought about said tea drinking, feel free to do so 😌✌️


End file.
